So this evening I logged into Leafmarks to find Jacquie's "Dear Readers" announcement that the site is shutting down in a month. It certainly was depressing news, especially after all of the effort I had put into getting my Shelfari group to move to Leafmarks and to laboriously transfer our discussion threads of our previous reads from the former site over to the latter.

Then I switch over to Booklikes and see several people posting and discussing the rumor that Booklikes has been sold and the preparations they are making for this very eventuality. In a way it's funny given that some of the posts have redirected readers to Leafmarks as an alternative outlet (which now looks a little like climbing onto the Titanic after its unsuccessful game of chicken with an iceberg) and yet it leaves a depressing sense that social cataloging sites for booklovers are dying out. Are we just doomed to see all of our venues die? Should we just give up wasting our time trying to create and develop our social networks when someone can just undo it all on a whim? Because I'm starting to question whether it is worth the effort.